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Epic Roast – Christmas Edition

As it’s my final Christmas as a student, our annual Uni Christmas Meal had to be something special. It was the second time I’d attempted an epic roast using our ovens and those of our next door neighbours, but this time I upped the stakes by using FOUR CHICKENS. yes, you heard me. Four. Such extravagance…

I’d been shopping in Co-op a few days before and discovered a large number of reduced chickens. So, naturally, I bought them all. There were six in total but it would have meant it was one between two and that’s a little excessive, even for me. These tasty blighters formed the backbone to the meal, but there was so much more to be made. We had all the trimmings you would expect, from roast potatoes and veg to cabbage fried with bacon and onion. I even made my own bread sauce, a skill I haven’t completely mastered yet…

Props to Olly for providing the cauliflower cheese and roasted vegetables, and Mahoney and Sherwood for a beautifully finished lemon meringue pie, despite the initial setbacks!

Here’s a picture of my schedule for the ovens:

As you can see, there was a lot on the menu. But as everyone knows, Christmas calories don’t count.

In the spirit of festive decadence we had two types of stuffing, good old fashioned Paxo, and my mum’s special recipe sausage meat one, which is my favourite stuffing possibly ever.

Lots of our guests subsequently asked for the recipe, so here it be:

Mama Jane’s Epic Stuffing

N.B. This is just a single quantity, will serve 6 – 8 quite comfortably

You will need:

– 700g pack Waitrose Essential Sausagemeat

– 200g Dried Apricots

– 6 rashers streaky bacon

– One large onion

– Black pepper

– Olive oil and butter for frying

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°/gas mark 5. Finely chop the onion and streaky bacon, and fry in oil and butter until the onions are soft and the bacon is beginning to crisp. Leave to one side to cool, and finely chop the apricots. When the onions and bacon are cool, mix them in with the apricots and sausage meat in a mixing bowl, sprinkle on some pepper and put into a heatproof ceramic dish. Bake in the oven for about 45 mins or until the top is brown. If you want to double the quantities (as I did for the epic roast) I would advise giving it at least an hour, and if you’re not sure cutting it open to check if the colour is uniform all the way through.